Can Rigetti Fund Aggressive R&D Without Straining Its Balance Sheet?

Rigetti Computing RGTI enters the second half of 2025 with a balance sheet that stands out even within the capital-intensive quantum space. The company ended the third quarter with approximately $559 million in cash, and warrant exercises later pushed liquidity beyond $600 million. That cash cushion gives Rigetti unusual freedom: it can press ahead with its technical roadmap without leaning on near-term equity dilution or debt.

Management has been clear that existing resources comfortably cover upcoming milestones, including a 100+ qubit system with 99.5% fidelity and a 150+ qubit, 99.7% fidelity platform targeted for 2026. For investors, this level of liquidity reduces near-term financial risk while giving the company room to navigate lumpy revenue tied to government contracts and research programs.

That said, Rigetti’s cost structure is clearly shifting as it gears up for more ambitious goals. Operating expenses climbed to roughly $21 million in the third quarter, reflecting heavier R&D investment through new engineering hires, higher compensation and stock-based incentives. This spending ramp aligns with the push toward a 1,000+ qubit, 99.8% fidelity system planned for 2027, along with work on chiplet architectures, fidelity scaling and hybrid-compute initiatives such as NVIDIA’s NVQLink integration.

Notably, the company frames this not as unchecked burn, but as targeted investment backed by a strong liquidity position. Taken together, Rigetti appears capable of sustaining elevated R&D intensity while still preserving enough financial flexibility to support manufacturing scale-up and future roadmap execution.

Peers Updates

IonQ IONQ continues to broaden its technical and commercial reach through acquisitions, most notably Oxford Ionics and Lightsynq. These deals add ion-trap expertise and photonic interconnect capabilities, while expanding IonQ’s intellectual property base to more than 1,000 assets. Strategically, this strengthens IonQ’s push toward more scalable systems and positions the company to play across both quantum computing and quantum networking. For investors, the takeaway is a gradual shift from a predominantly research-driven narrative toward deeper commercialization and ecosystem relevance.

Arqit Quantum ARQQ is taking a different route, doubling down on quantum-safe cybersecurity rather than hardware. Its inclusion in the Oracle Defense Ecosystem expands access to government and enterprise customers, while selection by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre adds credibility in post-quantum cryptography migration. In parallel, Fabric Networks’ licensing of Arqit’s NetworkSecure platform points to early commercial uptake. Overall, these developments suggest rising confidence in Arqit’s technology as the company works to convert partnerships into recurring revenue streams.

Rigetti’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of RGTI have gained 88.7% in the last six-month period against the industry’s decline of 6.3%.

From a valuation standpoint, Rigetti trades at a price-to-book ratio of 19.58, above the industry average. RGTI carries a Value Score of F.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Rigetti’s 2025 earnings implies a significant 88.9% decline from the year-ago period.

The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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